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Gospel Puzzles?; [Revised Catholic Edition]
Topic Started: Tuesday, 24. April 2007, 22:25 (1,414 Views)
PJD

"but I think there is something to be found in these ramblings"

Yes, so do I Gerry.

I don't think that we are really that far away from each other. Frequently I tend to put my thoughts rather badly. However Clare has above, in my opinion , saved us both from an unprofitable disagreement.

Let's be frank Gerry. Where in the Catholic papers, Bishops documents, any forum that I know of apart from this, will you find such subjects, not only mentioned and discussed, but also in possession of a membership that contributes - each and every one here! - fully and as far as possibly as best they can, and regularly come up with some contribution, encompassing differing expertises in one humble way or another etc. etc? There are many I am sure who do not know of us here (that we can't help of course), and who would not find these ramblings suitable to their taste - but equally there are many who would most certainly I think be of the opposite opinion.

It is true that God can use direct intervention; but I have always understood that that is rare and He usually acts through His creatures (but sorry can't provide you with a relevant quote). What do you think; or do you think you might think afresh? (smile)

There is nothing new under the sun? - dunno if that's wise man or whoever - but you will (another smile)

PJD

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Clare
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Putting the "Fun Dame" into Fundamentalist
PJD
Monday, 2. August 2010, 20:58
There is nothing new under the sun? - dunno if that's wise man or whoever...
Ecclesiastes 1:10.
S.A.G.

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Gerard

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I don't think that we are really that far away from each other. Frequently I tend to put my thoughts rather badly. However Clare has above, in my opinion , saved us both from an unprofitable disagreement.


We are not that far away from each other except for disagreement over sovreignty. I say, I think in agreement with OsB, that each is sovreign in its own field. You and Clare claim sovereignty of theology over science. Which I dispute. And I think 2,000 years of tehology have provided ample evidence of the foolishness of theologians claiming sovereignty over science. And some of the examples are scandalous in the Catholic use of the term.

Science deals with the material.
Theology deals with the spiritual.

It doesnt happen very often but when science and theology are in disagreement over an issue in Nature science will win. When science and theology are in disagreement over an issue in the spiritual realm theology will be more convincing (unfortunately I need to water down the word win because theology has many different theologies).

Gerry
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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Rose of York
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It is for theologians to interpret the moral use of science.

It seems to me that it is the same old story, clerics taking upon themselves roles for which others are better equipped.
Keep the Faith!

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Gerard

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It is true that God can use direct intervention; but I have always understood that that is rare and He usually acts through His creatures (but sorry can't provide you with a relevant quote). What do you think; or do you think you might think afresh? (smile)


Now, Augustine did say that miracles were natural events for which we had, as yet, no explanation. This was wise in that such a statement allowed science to progress without necessarily abolishing faith. However, Austine was prone to changing his mind (an excellent trait methinks) and I dont know if he changed or developed this attitude later on. For myself I accept it as partly true.

But I still consider a miracle to be the direct intervention of God. Otherwise it is not a miracle but simply a natural occurrence. For me a miracle is something Supernatural, i.e. something above Nature - beyond Nature. To say that God does not do these things would tend towards Deism. And I note you accept they happen sometimes so we are only considering frequency.

Now part of my thinking is that Creation is not a done deal. Creation has not been completed. Creation is something that is happening now and is continuing. So if God intervenes He is intervening in a work-in-progress. Its still part of creation. Also we say that God is present, involved and in relationship - so he must be intervening (otherwise we would have a deist God).

Another approach, which I particularly like, is the eschatological one. In which a miracle is "Heaven invading Earth". That is to say that The way something is meant to be when time comes to an end (i.e. when creation is completed) breaks through into the present. In this sense the miracle is "Natural" i.e. they way God intends eternity to be and the way it was before the fall.

Gerry
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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Gerard

Rose of York
Tuesday, 3. August 2010, 10:40
It is for theologians to interpret the moral use of science.

Yes, exactly, Rose.
Edited by Gerard, Tuesday, 3. August 2010, 10:55.
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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PJD

"Another approach, which I particularly like, is the eschatological one. In which a miracle is "Heaven invading Earth"."

Yes Gerry; it happens during every Mass.

PJD
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Mairtin
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23. In order that all these endeavours and exertions may really prove advantageous to the cause of the Bible, let scholars keep steadfastly to the principles which We have in this Letter laid down. Let them loyally hold that God, the Creator and Ruler of all things, is also the Author of the Scriptures - and that therefore nothing can be proved either by physical science or archaeology which can really contradict the Scriptures. If, then, apparent contradiction be met with, every effort should be made to remove it. Judicious theologians and commentators should be consulted as to what is the true or most probable meaning of the passage in discussion, and the hostile arguments should be carefully weighed. Even if the difficulty is after all not cleared up and the discrepancy seems to remain, the contest must not be abandoned; truth cannot contradict truth, and we may be sure that some mistake has been made either in the interpretation of the sacred words, or in the polemical discussion itself; and if no such mistake can be detected, we must then suspend judgment for the time being. There have been objections without number perseveringly directed against the Scripture for many a long year, which have been proved to be futile and are now never heard of; and not unfrequently interpretations have been placed on certain passages of Scripture (not belonging to the rule of faith or morals) which have been rectified by more careful investigations. As time goes on, mistaken views die and disappear; but "truth remaineth and groweth stronger for ever and ever."(61) Wherefore, as no one should be so presumptuous as to think that he understands the whole of the Scripture, in which St. Augustine himself confessed that there was more that he did not know, than that he knew,(62) so, if he should come upon anything that seems incapable of solution, he must take to heart the cautious rule of the same holy Doctor: "It is better even to be oppressed by unknown but useful signs, than to interpret them uselessly and thus to throw off the yoke only to be caught in the trap of error. "(63)

(My emphasis added)


That's from PROVIDENTISSIMUS DEUS the 1893 Encyclical by Pope Leo XIII so it precedes Pius X let alone Vatican II so it can hardly be dismised as that new fangled, 20th/21st century thinking that has done so much damage to the Church .



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Clare
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Gerard
Tuesday, 3. August 2010, 10:24
You and Clare claim sovereignty of theology over science. Which I dispute.
St Augustine agrees with me and PJD.
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Gerard

Not Quite Clare.
You believe in an earth-centric solar system because thats what you think scripture says.
St Augustine says not to do that.
Gerry
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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Clare
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Putting the "Fun Dame" into Fundamentalist
Gerard
Wednesday, 4. August 2010, 09:42
Not Quite Clare.
You believe in an earth-centric solar system because thats what you think scripture says.
St Augustine says not to do that.
Gerry
I said that St Augustine agrees with me about the sovereignty of theology over science.

I repeat:
St Augustine
 
"Whatever they can really demonstrate to be true of physical nature, we must show to be capable of reconciliation with our Scriptures; and whatever they assert in their treatises which is contrary to these Scriptures of ours, that is to Catholic faith, we must either prove it as well as we can to be entirely false, or at all events we must, without the smallest hesitation, believe it to be so."
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Clare
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Putting the "Fun Dame" into Fundamentalist
Gerard
Wednesday, 4. August 2010, 09:42
Not Quite Clare.
You believe in an earth-centric solar system because thats what you think scripture says.
St Augustine says not to do that.
Gerry
Do you think St Augustine was a heliocentrist, Gerry?
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Clare
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Putting the "Fun Dame" into Fundamentalist
St Augustine seemed to be under the impression that Scripture says the universe is geocentric:

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Augustine: Let not the philosophers, then, think to upset our faith with arguments from the weight of bodies; for I don't care to inquire why they cannot believe an earthly body can be in heaven, while the whole earth is suspended on nothing. For perhaps the world keeps its central place by the same law that attracts to its center all heavy bodies. (City of God, Bk XIII, Ch 18)

Augustine: For an eclipse of the sun had also happened; and this was attributed to the divine power of Romulus by the ignorant multitude, who did not know that it was brought about by the fixed laws of the sun's course (City of God, Bk III, Ch 15)

Augustine: This he said either of those things of which he had just been speaking--the succession of generations, the orbit of the sun, the course of rivers,--or else of all kinds of creatures. that are born and die. (City of God, Bk XII, Ch 13).

Augustine: What is there so arranged by the Author of the nature of heaven and earth as the exactly ordered course of the stars? What is there established by laws so sure and inflexible? And yet, when it pleased Him who with sovereignty and supreme power regulates all He has created, a star conspicuous among the rest by its size and splendor changed its color, size, form, and, most wonderful of all, the order and law of its course! Certainly that phenomenon disturbed the canons of the astronomers, if there were any then, by which they tabulate, as by unerring computation, the past and future movements of the stars, so as to take upon them to affirm that this which happened to the morning star (Venus) never happened before nor since. But we read in the divine books that even the sun itself stood still when a holy man, Joshua the son of Nun, had begged this from God until victory should finish the battle he had begun; and that it even went back, that the promise of fifteen years added to the life of king Hezekiah might be sealed by this additional prodigy. But these miracles, which were vouchsafed to the merits of holy men, even when our adversaries believe them, they attribute to magical arts; so Virgil, in the lines I quoted above, ascribes to magic the power to "Turn rivers backward to their source, And make the stars forget their course." (City of God, Book XXI, Ch 8).

Augustine: Who else save Joshua the son of Nun divided the stream of the Jordan for the people to pass over, and by the utterance of a prayer to God bridled and stopped the revolving sun? Who save Samson ever quenched his thirst with water flowing forth from the jawbone of a dead ass? Who save Elias was carried aloft in a chariot of fire? (Tractates, XCI, Ch XV, 24-25, 2).

Augustine: I desire to know the power and nature of time, by which we measure the motions of bodies, and say (for example) that this motion is twice as long as that. For, I ask, since "day" declares not the stay only of the sun upon the earth, according to which day is one thing, night another, but also its entire circuit from east even to east, according to which we say, "So many days have passed" (the nights being included when we say "so many days," and their spaces not counted apart), since, then, the day is finished by the motion of the sun, and by his circuit from east to east, I ask, whether the motion itself is the day, or the period in which that motion is completed, or both? For if the first be the day, then would there be a day although the sun should finish that course in so small a space of time as an hour. If the second, then that would not be a day if from one sunrise to another there were but so short a period as an hour, but the sun must go round four-and-twenty times to complete a day. If both, neither could that be called a day if the sun should run his entire round in the space of an hour; nor that, if, while the sun stood still, so much time should pass as the sun is accustomed to accomplish his whole course in from morning to morning. I shall not therefore now ask, what that is which is called day, but what time is, by which we, measuring the circuit of the sun, should say that it was accomplished in half the space of time it was wont, if it had been completed in so small a space as twelve hours; and comparing both times, we should call that single, this double time, although the sun should run his course from east to east sometimes in that single, sometimes in that double time. Let no man then tell me that the motions of the heavenly bodies are times, because, when at the prayer of one the sun stood still in order that he might achieve his victorious battle, the sun stood still, but time went on. For in such space of time as was sufficient was that battle fought and ended. I see that time, then, is a certain extension. But do I see it, or do I seem to see it? Thou, O Light and Truth, wilt show me. (Confessions, Bk XI, Ch XXIII, 30)


More from the Fathers on ScriptureCatholic.
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Gerard

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Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics;


P.S. The Scripture quotes in Clare's post above are all taken out of context. They come from a Fundamentalist website whic, though claiming to be Catholic says things like this:

Quote:
 
We must also remember that the Scriptures were dictated to the sacred writers by the Holy Ghost.


Which, of course, is not the Catholic teaching.

Gerry
Edited by Gerard, Wednesday, 4. August 2010, 11:18.
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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Mairtin
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Gerard
Wednesday, 4. August 2010, 10:40
P.S. The Scripture quotes in Clare's post above are all taken out of context. They come from a Fundamentalist website whic, though claiming to be Catholic says things like this:
Quote:
 
We must also remember that the Scriptures were dictated to the sacred writers by the Holy Ghost.

Which, of course, is not the Catholic teaching.
Clare, like all fundamentalists, is ever eager to take isolated quotations to support her ideas which have not been supported by the Church for a very long time - if, indeed, they ever were.

In regard to geocentrism, Augustine was simply going along with the accepted scientific opinion of his day - in so far as the term 'scientific' can be applied to those days. He repeatedly disclaimed any final conclusion - as Pope Leo reminded us in the passage from PROVIDENTISSIMUS DEUS quoted earlier, "St. Augustine himself confessed that [in regard to Holy Scripture] there was more that he did not know, than that he knew - yet Clare ignores his repeated warnings of the dangers of holding any fixed position about these matters and she tries to present his qualified acceptance of general scientific opinion at that time to be some sort of support for her eccentric idea that Galileo and all scientists since have got things wrong and that the Church has been equally wrong in accepting their findings.

I always thought that sort of thinking and disingenuous argument to be confined to Protestant fundamentalists, particularly in the USA Bible Belt, but through Clare I have learnt that there is a very obscure element in the Catholic Church that prefer this sort of nonsense and, despite the fact that not one respected theologian in the Church agrees with them, choose to reject the position that the Church has consistently taken for at least 1500 years, and present themselves as having some sort of 'real truth'.

She usually tries to get off the hook by blaming the successors of Pope Pius X for everything, I'm waiting patiently for her justification of why she rejects the words of Pope Leo XII.
Edited by Mairtin, Wednesday, 4. August 2010, 19:39.
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